Cachoeira was warned about the Federal Police operation hours before his arrest.
The message was delivered by federal police chief Fernando Byron. Lenine Sousa, the racketeer's right-hand man, even went so far as to devise an escape plan.
247 – Excerpts from previously unreleased phone recordings revealing details about the activities of Carlinhos Cachoeira's group were broadcast by TV Folha this Sunday. In them, the illegal gambling operator Carlos Augusto Almeida Ramos, known as Carlinhos Cachoeira, is warned by a police informant that something was about to happen, hours before Operation Monte Carlo.
According to the program, federal police officer Fernando Byron warned Cachoeira that an operation would take place in Brasília. But the officer himself was allegedly misled by the top brass of the Federal Police and ended up being arrested along with Cachoeira in February.
“It has nothing to do with us,” the police chief said in a phone call with Cachoeira. “I was called for an operation. The destination is Brasília, right? They're taking the entire superintendency. Most of the police chiefs, I think there will be a few left, and... practically all the agents, clerks... it's a whole bunch of people. It has nothing to do with us. A job in Brasília. You can rest easy,” Byron says, according to audio shown on the program.
In the same call, Cachoeira makes a request to the police chief: "Tonight, if you can let me know what it is, tell me."
The racketeer then contacts Idalberto Matias de Araújo, nicknamed Dadá, to try to gather information about the operation. “There’s going to be something in Brasília tomorrow. [...] Everyone from Goiânia is going there. See what it is, what the matter is,” Cachoeira tells his assistant.
The program “TV Folha” also released an audio recording in which Lenine Sousa – Cachoeira's right-hand man, according to the report – outlines an escape plan on the morning the operation was launched, on February 29th.
“Let’s get out of here. Quick, quick, quick. I think politics is coming. If anything happens, I’m out of here,” Lenine says in the call to an undisclosed interlocutor. He managed to escape, but turned himself in to the police 14 days later, according to the program.